Of Selling Homes and Family Pets

Our house is a very, very, very fine house. With two cats in the yard, life used to be so hard." -- CSNY

Well, I’m a San Diegan now despite living in temporary quarters. My arrival has carried with it more of a permanence as we close on our estates in Virginia next week and we are now in that delightfully nerve-racking escrow period on our home in Sacramento. I think these are both good things.

The sale of the home in Sacramento carries with it some amusement. We got an offer, we countered, she accepted. That was simple and happened over a 24-hour period. Seems as though she wanted the house and didn’t want to dicker like the dickering that was done to us in Virginia. However, our buyer in Sacramento had four items she wanted included in the purchase price: our spa, our refrigerator, our barbeque and the family cat. Yes, the cat.

Now some truth: the cat was not loved in our family, despite being with us for 10 years. It was rescued as a malnourished kitten by a soft-hearted and, as it turns out, soft-headed Mrs. Laz, and was appropriately named at the time, Bones. Over the years Bones developed decidedly unfriendly characteristics. She swipes at you as you walk by, loves to stare down small dogs and let them taste “the claw” when she’s feeling particularly feisty. If you decide you want to get near her and scratch her on the chin, you have about 30 seconds before she bites or claws you. She also enjoyed torturing mice, birds and lizards and bringing their dying and mauled bodies into our house just in case we wanted to watch the final fatal blows.

So when our counter offer was returned, our realtor wrote “refrigerator, spa, barbeque and cat convey with no warranties and no value.” Couldn’t have said it better myself. I hope our buyer loves our house and the cat. The house is certainly worth loving; can’t say the same for the cat. Bye Bones!

All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers

A wiser philosopher than me (Georg Hegel, I think, although if I could remember this kind of detail I would have made it out of college with a piece of paper other than a reminder not to return for the next semester) once observed, “the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.” I think this means we often miss the signs that important things are going to happen after it’s already too late to do anything about them. I think I may have missed my owl taking off.

There has been a growing realization that I am the first to know about something and the last to act on it. While I wasn’t the original instigator – that role belongs to the Boy – I think I was the first one to figure out the snowbell was heading downhill and we were meeting up with it in San Diego.

To be clear, we’re not leaving Sacramento because it is an absolutely awful place to live; we’d lived in worse places. But San Diego is viewed as a lifestyle change; the ability to live in what most call near-perfect weather, well equipped for 365 days of outside activity, and to live near my two best friends, in no particular order, Mr. Sladed and Italiphil.

Mrs. Laz has been there for the better part of the past two months and the Boy just arrived with Ber in the past two weeks. The Girl, who has decided to take a dip in this familial experiment as the Control Group, is not far behind, perhaps three or four weeks away. It seems everything is in place for me to make my move and join my family in what feels like nothing short of Manifest Destiny. Instead I am stuck with one foot out the door and the other foot with my remaining heel clearly dug in and I am hoping someone can tell me why this is the case.

I can offer up a few theories:

1. I have been someplace other than what I call home for the past several weeks and the thought of packing up a car in the next 72 hours and driving 10 hours sounds exhausting. But I have to do it sometime and better sooner than later as I am beginning to forget what the Mrs. looks like (and the dogs, too).

2. While we were willing to get filleted in Virginia in selling all our land holdings there, we have no interest or ability in doing the same in Sacramento. Therefore we have a beautiful albatross draped around our necks and it doesn’t feel right to leave it unattended with nothing more than the silly hope that we will find a buyer who hasn’t read a newspaper in the last six months and still believes property values in California are at an all-time high. Since this person would be in the same basket as Santa Claus, unicorns and real estate agents that don’t lie and cheat, I don’t think I will hold my breath.

While I am concerned about our real estate curse, we can likely rent our home and hope for a later rebound in the market. Of course this carries the risk of a still larger “correction” and the fact that I will have to pack up an entire house full of furniture and memories and stick it on a moving van that will have to circle around San Diego until we can afford to buy a house there. More exhaustion but I may have a few tricks up my sleeve on this front and will discuss them with Mrs. Laz assuming we are in the same city for more than a few hours.

3. I happen to love sports and, frankly, I may need a larger pull than the Chargers and Padres to tickle my sports fancy. Trevor Hoffman can’t save a game these days and the Pads are languishing. As of this writing, they are not headed for the playoffs unless the bullpen remembers how to pitch again. The Chargers looked great last year until a playoff meltdown was extended into a front office meltdown. This led to the hiring of a gypsy NFL coach with a spotty record who will implement a new system in a situation that screams, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Also, I prefer the NBA to these other minor sports and despite the Kings turning into a League joke with its own front office meltdown, I still get more excited about watching and following the NBA than any other sport short of nude volleyball. Let’s see how the home teams in San Diego perform before passing final judgment, but for now, they’re suspect.

4. Another thought is that I have a practice of making friends with nearly every acquaintance. My friends don’t become best friends – that job was already taken by, in no particular order, Italiphil and Sladed – but I have come to enjoy their company just the same. I worry about what becomes of this collection of misfits who reciprocate their friendship, or at least ask to borrow money. Am I destined to burn through friendships no matter how close a relationship I have with them? Or will settling in one place allow me to build better and longer-lasting friendships and push the other two “best friend” knuckleheads to start giving me a little more respect lest I drop their best-friend status in favor of an outsider?

As mentioned in a previous post I have been saying my good-byes. I have learned that I am not particularly good at it as I don’t like the lonely feeling that I will never see someone again. While no plans exist to never again see any friends we made up in Sacramento, I know there is a possibility our paths may never have the chance to cross. Distance in miles and time are not the best tonic in maintaining friendships as I have found many times in my life. I know each member of our family has to go through this, including Mrs. Laz saying fare-thee-well to Judy, her best friend and soul mate, but I think it affects me more, or perhaps I just complain the loudest about it. I just know I don’t find any joy in this part of moving to a new city. And I also know I have moved away from parents, friends and relatives before and survived, this time it just hits me a little later in life when the twilight for making friends may be slipping away.

Certainly there are other reasons out there to examine, but perhaps my list is more comprehensive than I at first thought. I guess, in the end, I am just dealing with a lot of crap and working through it at a time my mind and body needs to be elsewhere. Or maybe I can bring in another great thinker, Emerson this time, (and of this I am certain and I also know that his partners, Lake and Palmer, were pretty good too). He once wrote that “events are in the saddle and ride mankind.” Maybe he was warning us that it is useless to fight things we can do nothing about, like the fact that I am just listening to Janis Joplin and I continue to be amazed how awful her band the Holding Company truly was. I want to listen to Janis’ raspy voice but her band can’t keep a beat. “Man,” as she would say.

In the end I know I’ll do what Jackson advises. I will go and pack my sorrow, knowing the trashman comes tomorrow, leave it at the curb, and just roll away. Maybe I’ll even do that on that elusive windy day.

The Perils Of A Roller Coaster Life

Funny how plans can change so suddenly and have such a ubiquitous effect on so many parts of life, and on so many lives. Those who are close to me know I was working on a “big deal.” It’s not unusual for me to be working on a big deal as my business life is nothing more than chasing one big deal after another. Like most big deals, they tend to be elusive and you lose far more than you get. Well, it looks like the latest big deal isn’t going to happen, although that could change again before I finish this post, such has been the roller coaster ride on this one.

It’s not the fact that this latest big deal hasn’t come trough that bothers me, it’s the recent string of perhaps dozens of big deals that haven’t come through that is shaking my confidence. I’ve been on a roll of bad luck, broken promises and bad choices of people I have trusted. It makes me want to take stock of the whole “big deal” way of doing business and look for a simpler way to earn a living. But, of course, that’s not really my personality.

I am a person of faith who believes things happen for a reason and that we are to learn lessons from each disappointment and success. But I am sort of stuck at the moment trying to understand what the two-year streak of “bad luck” is all about. Could it be as simple as just learning how to endure? In my most calm moments, I can see it that way or see it as a way to toughen me up or even just be smarter about the people I deal with. In my more maudlin times, I question my hopes and dreams and if they are meant for others.

Don’t get me totally wrong, I have enjoyed a successful business life by most standards and I couldn’t have wished for or expected a more complete family life. I am more bothered by the fact that I have reached a point in my business where success should be more frequent and reliable and where I should be making better choices in my side ventures.

Last year, in one of my never-ending searches to better my financial position, I started a business with a very close friend. The friend turned out to be not as close as I would have imagined, lied a great deal, chased his own hugely unrealistic dreams and cost me a bundle of money and our friendship. What’s the lesson in this one; not to trust even your closest friends? Not to work with friends? I will likely never know the answer to that. I have made more mistakes in trusting others lately, but this one is a very deep and profound disappointment that makes me question things on many different levels and I have not yet put it in a forum like this except in an abstract way. Now, I suppose, it needs to be said.

It is difficult to convey the ripple effect in these up and down moments (and as of this paragraph, my “big deal” is back on again) and what it means to my family life and current transitory lifestyle. For the moment I am the proverbial man without a country – or a home or home life at least. I have one foot stuck in the mud in Sacramento, I have my wife and my love in San Diego and my dreams for a more complete professional life in faraway places. I had my own plans (kept largely to myself) on a series of moves, but they were dependent on the most recent “big deal.” Without it, I am short a plan.

My mother almost marveled at my ability to cope with diversity. Perhaps because she said it so often I tried all that much harder to live up to her expectation. It could be, however, that I am beginning to reach my limit on things that require me to cope. At my age, I should be coasting more and having to cope less. Finding comfort and peace in my turbulent head seems to be the answer, getting there looks like the challenge.

Raped By Realtors

There is an old lawyer joke that is in need of update. It used to go something like, “what do you call one million lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start.” I think the time has come to amend this slightly to include Realtors.

We just got so utterly squeezed by the buyer’s criminal agent and our part-time real estate agent on the sale of our estates in Virginia, that one wonders if any laws were broken. Just being told every day that “it’s a buyer’s market” and doing to us what Clinton had been doing to Monica is no way to earn a 6% sales commission. At least that’s my opinion. In fact, you’d have to have little pride in your industry to look someone straight in the face and say your industry deserves this commission – a supposedly negotiable percentage.

On second thought, there may be laws being broken by the agents. Take a look at the current housing market. We hear at least one story every day that the market is slowing and values are plummeting. Who says so? Realtors, of course. And what do Realtors have to benefit by a market in full plunge? Faster sales. So these so-called experts tell us what price to market our house and then let offers come in 20 percent below asking price and urge us to take it. I think there is collusion going on and should be investigated. It's tough being a commissioned sales agent, but have some respect and collectively advise your sellers to hold the line, not drop the price through the basement.

This is not just the comments of someone who ended up on a bad end of transaction, but someone who is seriously challenging whether or not agents are purposely driving down the price of housing to ensure more and faster real estate sales. Yes, I know there are people who made bad investments and got teased with teaser interest rates who unfortunately need to sell. But that is just more of the ginned-up sales cycle that real estate agents urged us to buy into. “Interest rates are the lowest in 40 years,” one ad would say, implying that if you don’t buy now and buy often, you’re a moron. And, naturally, let a Realtor navigate the tricky waters of buying something that ended up at the top of the market.

Whatever happened to the old investment advice of buying low and selling high? And whatever happened to real estate agents advising their buyers that they were purchasing at the top of the market? I suspect they were too busy trying to catch a quick wave that they didn’t pay attention to the sales figures.

Using the Virginia Estates as an example of the chicanery in the industry, we agreed upon a list price that was below our tax assessment. We were told up front that it was a good price. When we entered the market there were two other similar homes for sale and their asking price was about the same as ours. Within days of us entering the market, each dropped their price $30,000, no doubt urged by their agent to do so to make their properties more attractive. I sneered at their willingness to drop so readily, but after several months of no activity, we lowered our price to match them. Once again, within days, they dropped their prices another $20,000, again no doubt at the urging of their “it’s a soft-headed-market” real state agents.

So we have a running of the bears in the real estate market fueled by the chutzpah of real estate agents and the frayed nerves of the people to whom they provide counsel. In unison, it seems, we all became nervous that the value of our homes was plummeting and it would be years when the current value would return. Sell now or face worse choices, we were told.

When we finally got an illusive offer – from a young woman whose mother happened to be an agent – it was so depressing that we nearly rejected it without a counter-offer. Our part-time agents suggested a counter-offer that we normally would never consider. But we did and it barely budged them from their initial offer. To make a long story short, we did reach an agreement, but there is no joy in the end result. Sadly, when we go to buy in San Diego, we will find the meanest, nastiest buyer’s agent possible and do to others what has been done to us. Of course we will probably be told by our agent that it is now a seller’s market. Seems to be our dumb luck, anyway.

Going Home

Could be that I am slow on the uptake, but it is just occurring to me that the Mrs. and I are moving to San Diego. The early signal that I missed is Mrs. Laz has been offered and accepted a job in San Diego and began working there about a month ago. This, coupled with the fact that we are actively looking for a house, are strong indicators that a move is in the works.

I don’t know why this moving business is sneaking up on me since it was first put out as a point of discussion a year ago. But it seemed to go from chin-scratching theory to gaining its own momentum while I wasn’t paying attention.

It’s actually an open secret that nobody in my family likes Sacramento so it should not be that big of a surprise that we have all sought to move elsewhere. I don’t want to say too much that would appear negative about Sacramento because I have plenty of friends who will continue to live here and what I may say will only accentuate the notion that I am a snob.

One thing that can be said that nobody can quarrel with is that Sacramento is hot. When it is 108 degrees, folks around here like to mention that it is a “dry heat.” Well, Hell may be a dry heat too, but it doesn’t mean it’s comfortable. Give me a good ol’ fashioned “night and morning low clouds” situation in San Diego any day of the week over dry heat.

Sacramento has an eclectic population; an odd mixture of farmers, state workers and Bay Area transplants. This makes driving between tomato trucks, 1972 Fords and the occasional Hummer a very interesting and dangerous activity. Fortunately for many there is plenty of room to park their cars in their front lawns – I guess because they can’t navigate past the collection of washing machines and rusted-out refrigerators to get in their garage (assuming the garage has not be converted to a family room).

OK, I got personal, but I guess I am trying to reassure myself that the brown grass in San Diego is greener. Or, better put, denigrating my relationship with Sacramento to ease the pain of separation.

I didn’t think of this until this morning, but I have lived here longer than any other place in my life, which is really quite strange because I have never thought of it as home. I have been here for nearly 20 years but still think of myself as being raised in Michigan (first 14 years) and going through my formative years in San Diego (the next 14 years). Absent a two-year sentence in Texas and two years of breathing hot air in Washington, DC, the rest of my life my home has been here in Sacramento.

The truth about any place you live is you choose to stay because of the people you have come to be friends with. That part is just sinking in as I have been gradually saying goodbye to friends and acquaintances the past several days.

Mind you this should not shock anyone, but I am overly-sentimental about people, places and things. I remember the last few days before moving from Michigan to California where every step I took on the sidewalk I cried a bit knowing I would never step on that section of sidewalk again. It wasn’t because I had so much affection for concrete that I cried; it was more because I didn’t give in to the deceit that my parents were peddling that we would be coming back to Michigan often and that we’d see our friends whenever we liked. It doesn’t work that way and it didn’t take long to learn that Thomas Wolfe was right about going home. When we leave, time leaves with us and we never quite know what we have lost until we take a trip back and realize the distance between us and our friends. People change in small, indecipherable ways that is difficult to notice when we’re together often. But when it’s been a few years, or even months, between visits, you notice the small changes even more.

While it should be easy to be going “home” again, I know there are people and parts of Sacramento I will miss. There is one person I will miss the most and we have done a pretty good job so far of pretending we’re not heading in separate directions. You see, unlike the Boy, the Girl has no interest in coming to San Diego. While she has no great love for the oven of Sacramento, she is working here and until she finds the job she is looking for in another city, she will be too far away for my tastes. I have said a few good-byes with a kiss or hearty handshake already, but saying goodbye to Em is an impossible thought at the moment. A kiss goodbye will never be enough as I can’t picture her not sitting in our family room hogging the remote control. But we will try to say goodbye with a kiss knowing that it may not be the truth, but it is what we wish were true.

Surf's Up

Every now and then San Diego is hit with the southern swell. These photos (courtesy of the San Diego Union) are from the La Jolla Cove. I've only seen it this big two other years; once in 1970 and the other in 1981 (although I only saw them through Skip's photos, courtesy of Skip). I know one or two of you who read this are from San Diego and have moved elsewhere, so enjoy the surf.

Critical Update For Those In San Diego

This just in, there are now two Slades driving automobiles around the greater San Diego area who are dangerous: Hank and Corey.

They're on opposite ends of the spectrum; Corey just got his license and doesn't know where he's going and Hank has had his license for 100 years and, well, he doesn't know where he's going either.

Please drive with caution and keep a look out for an early model Volvo Tank and any car with USC license plate rims.

This tip came from a concerned driver and parent who now has something else to worry about.